Background: Since the 1937 Irish Constitution was passed, Judges pay was not allowed to be interfered with (to assure the independence of the court system from the political establishment), so it could not be lowered, even when the country was going through financial hardtimes. With the advent of the current severe recession in Ireland, the public were not happy about this unfair advantage given to this particular elite group of people, and there was a major outcry. This resulted in the Taoiseach at the time, Brian Cowen (Fianna Fáil), asking judges to take a voluntary pay cut, which 125 of 147 judges agreed to, and when Fine Gael/Labour came to power in 2011, they set about pushing for this referendum.

Result Summary:
Electorate: 3,191,157
Total Poll: 1,785,707
Percentage Poll: 55.96%
Invalid Papers: 37,696
Valid Poll: 1,748,011
Votes in favour: 1,393,877 (79.74%)
Votes against: 354,134 (20.26%)